Sports + Recreation

Staff Pick

Best Art-Influenced Skate Park

Ride It Sculpture Park

Back in 2012, husband-and-wife artists Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert scored a $30,000 grant from the Tony Hawk Foundation to transform four vacant lots in their north Detroit neighborhood into a skate park. While construction is still underway — there are plans for an adjacent "Skate House," a miniature indoor park that could also house visiting skateboarders — the park has already established itself as a hangout for neighborhood youth. But it's not just for the kids — Reichert told MT a lot of older skaters dig the park's old-school '70s California pool aesthetic. Since the artists collaborated with avid skaters to build the park, the result is a quirky, unusual space that has even become an international destination for riders.